Intel's 916,000-pound shipment is a "cold box," a self-standing air-processor structure that facilitates the cryogenic technology needed to fabricate semiconductors. The box is 23 feet tall, 20 feet wide, and 280 feet long, nearly the length of a football field. The immense scale of the cold box necessitates a transit process that moves at a "parade pace" of 5-10 miles per hour. Intel is taking over southern Ohio's roads for the next several weeks and months as it builds its new Ohio One Campus, a $28 billion project to create a 1,000-acre campus with two chip factories and room for more. Calling it the new "Silicon Heartland," the project will be the first leading-edge semiconductor fab in the American Midwest, and once operational, will get to work on the "Angstrom era" of Intel processes, 20A and beyond.
I don't know why, but I've never thought of the transport logistics involved in building a semiconductor fabrication plant.
I mean, everyone has been crying and whinging for years, decades even, that the USA needs to ramp up semiconductor fabrication in case shit goes south in Taiwan. We are finally getting some domestic production power and we're getting outraged by the traffic delays? America will sink itself because of our people's own addiction to comfort and complaining about any slight to that comfort.
Yep, the fab plant is a little east of Columbus (just south of where I live actually). This is one of like 2 dozen "super loads" that has to make its way from the Ohio River up to the plant. I swear there is a website somewhere that keeps track of when the are coming, the routes they take, and the closures involved but my Google-fu is failing me now.
As excited as I am to see my home city actually growing and gaining national attention, I miss the chill cow-town vibes. Traffic is only gonna get worse from here.
Ehhh. We are really just hedging our bets. As I understand it we are focusing on production of the older generations of chips. That frees up Taiwan to focus on the bleeding edge chips. Losing Taiwan would still be a massive blow to the global economy.
Shouldn't come as much surprise though. We're not going to risk nuclear armageddon over nVidia's stock price.
There'll be lots of huffing and puffing, stern statements and red lines drawn, but if China decide they really want it, they'll take it and the rest of the world won't really do much.
Everyone has way too much of their infrastructure in China and they know it.
The bigger news here is something from his administration is coming to fruition that creates American jobs and reduces foreign dependency on a major commodity for both civilian and military applications.
Not sure if this image from the DOT is actually of this specific shipment because I found this image from April when they moved the eighth part and it's less that half the weight. Here's a two minute video of it.
This is the twelfth of nearly two dozen "super loads" that will make their way from a dock on the Ohio River near Manchester in Adams County to New Albany in Licking County.
Well a football field is 57,600 sq ft, and a cubic foot of dirt weighs between 110-140 lbs depending on composition. That means that an average football field at a depth of one foot weighs around 6,912,000 lbs.
This thing weighs 916,000 lbs. So it is 0.1325231481 football fields.
They did something similar with some transformers here in Australia, and unfortunately there were some possibly associated traffic incidents where people might have not been going the right speed and got rear-ended. One man died, even.
Please avoid the route, even when it is pulled over to "rest", as your fellow motorists may not be able to resist rubbernecking.
This is why ultrasized cargo airships need to be a thing. Just sling that bad boy underneath a kilometre long hydrogen dirigible and fly it to its destination.
if you look at the history of what happened to each Zeppelin airship you get a really good idea why it's a bad idea.
LZ1: damaged during initial flight, repaired and flown two more times before investors backed out causing the ship to be sold for scrap.
LZ2: suffered double engine failure and crashed into a mountain. While anchored to the mountain awaiting repairs a storm destroyed it beyond repair.
LZ3: built from salvaged parts of LZ2. Severally damaged in storm. After LZ4's destruction LZ3 was repaired and was accepted by the German military who eventually scrapped it.
LZ4: suffered from chronic engine failure. While repairing the engines a gust of wind blew the ship free of its mooring and struck a tree causing the ship to ignite and burn to the ground.
LZ5: destroyed in a storm.
LZ6: destroyed in its hanger by fire.
LZ7: destroyed after crashing in a thunderstorm.
LZ8: destroyed by wind.
LZ9: this one actually worked and survived for three years before being decommissioned.
LZ10: caught on fire and destroyed after a gust of wind blew its mooring line into itself.
LZ11: destroyed while attempting to move the ship into it's hanger
LZ12 & LZ13: both flew successful careers before being decommissioned a few years later.
LZ14: destroyed in a thunderstorm.
LZ15: destroyed during an emergency landing.
LZ16: was stolen by the French. ***
LZ17: decommissioned after the war.
LZ18: exploded during its test flight.
LZ19: damaged beyond repair during an emergency landing.
LZ129: the Hindenburg.
LZ127: retired and scrapped after flying over a million miles.
LZ130: flew 30 flights before being dismantled for parts to aid in the war effort
The problem is with airships and aerostats in general is you need a massive balloon just to lift a small amount of weight but the larger you make it the more susceptible to weather it ends up being. With the amount of surface area a balloon that's a 1km long has you would have to spend a considerable amount of energy just to stop it from blowing away in the wind, as inefficient as it is the truck may actually use less fuel because of this.
We've made a lot of advances since the early 20th century, believe it or not. I don't think using semirigid airships as both cargo transports and "satellites" needed for temporary communications purposes over a large area such as a disaster zone where cell communication has been lost would be out of the question now.
Yeah if I had to guess a lot of components need to be assembled/put together in a clean room. Then to keep everything "clean", mine as well just assemble it all in one place, which isn't likely doable on site.
Is Intel paying the state or country for this abuse of the logistics network? This feels like freeloading on a publicly funded piece of infrastructure.
I'm assuming the transport accommodations are part of the perk package (for lack of a better way to put it)
I have no insight into this particular plant, but in most big investments like this, the company is usually in talks with several locations negotiating for the best tax breaks, permitting accommodations, etc under the promise that it will bring skilled jobs to the area.
Basically, it's seen as an investment both from the company and the location's points-of-view.
I'm a logistics professional with some project cargo experience. The transportation arrangements are almost certainly being made by a private company not related to Intel. There are only a handful of trailers in the country that can move something like this.
Intel will be paying people to build and work at the factory. Highly skilled labor that can't be shipped overseas easily. It will also likely bring other companies to the area because of access to those highly skilled workers. The state will likely make more a lot more back in taxes and economic growth than the cost of the transports.
Intel also works with local community colleges to offer semiconductor specific training to be a manufacturing technician, and it's not a huge jump to be a maintenance/repair tech or jump to IT within the fab and in my experience all those roles from technician to IT pay fairly good wages high 20's to mid 30's/hr and up depending on experience.
I hope truckers, pilot car drivers and dispatchers will be making crazy money off this parade as well. Ohio exists, might as well make the best of it. XD
We all pay. That's how it works. Gas taxes and registration fees. The driver paid for a license. The truck had sales tax. It's a distributed payment method. Not a pay as needed system. Unless they go on a toll road. But that's a separate rant.